


Darkness On the Edge of Town

by Mikkal



Series: Waiting for Time to Run Out [1]
Category: DC Comics, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Asexual Character, Asexual!Barry, Bruce Wayne is a semi-well adjusted human being, Bruce Wayne is the Goddamn Batman, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Pre-Series, Surprises!, comic mixed with canon, drugged!Barry, friendships, injured!Barry, injuries, sci-fi drugs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-19 17:30:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3618243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkal/pseuds/Mikkal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Barry Allen in Coast City, where he meets more than just Hal Jordan. His friend pool gets a little deeper, a little richer, and a few rumors come to light.</p>
<p>There's rolling blackouts happening in Coast City and petty criminal activity has gone through the roof in the two weeks since the blackouts started. Not to mention, a strange new drug is on the streets. It's additive and deadly.</p>
<p> Just one week before the Mayor calls a state of emergency, Barry Allen, in a strange case of happenstance, meets Carol Ferris, Bruce Wayne, Ted Kord, and many others. </p>
<p>Here we go.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p> ON SEMI- PERMANENT HIATUS</p>
  <p> Check out <i>Sleep Like Dead Men. Wake Like Dead Men.</i> or the series <i>Thunder, Lightning, and the Storm</i> for a Westhallen by Mikkal fix</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

            The lecture ends ten minutes early and Barry sits there for a full minute longer, completely unsure what to do now. He’s been in Coast City for a day now, half of which has been spent in Continuing Education and the other half in his hotel room. He doesn’t want to go home and tell Iris that he spent all of his time alone; if he tells her other wise she’ll spot the lie a mile away.

            He doesn’t want to lie to her anyway. Not to Iris.

            Barry sighs and packs his laptop into his bag before slinging over his head. Most of the people are already out of the lecture hall, roaming the convention hall in the basement of the hotel. The lecturer, a Dr. Darwin Elias (who specializes in blood analysis, but dabbles in theoretical renewable energies), is lingering behind. He debates going up to him to ask a few more questions, not about the lecture, but about the monorail he’s had as a developing theory, his debate is finished when the good doctor is then crowded by over enthusiastic scientists.

            This is where Barry concedes his chance to talk to Dr. Elias. He’s been in the game long enough to know that he is not completely welcomed in those types of situations. His age is not…well received in these circles. It’s one of the few things he hasn’t figured out, but he’s resigned to it.

            He sighs and pushes his way out of the room, eyeing a few groups that have converged in the conference hall. Mercury Labs is having a small corporate meeting and Ferris Aircraft seems to be having a ground-tech demo. If there’s anything more pathetic than spending time in a hotel room when there’s Coast City to explore, it’s spending time at a ground-tech demo that he’s not even suppose to be a part of.

            “You look like you’re thinking too hard.”

            Barry jumps, his heart racing, and he whirls around to see an attractive woman grinning at him. She’s tall, lean, and dark haired, and wearing a business suit with a Ferris Aircraft nametag proclaiming her to be _the_ Carol Ferris.

            She laughs. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” She sticks out a hand. “Carol Ferris.”

            “Barry Allen,” he replies, shaking it firmly. “I don’t mean to be rude, but why are you here and not there.” He jerks a thumb toward the group of obviously higher ups standing in front of the lecture hall where Ferris Aircraft is, the only one not in a business suit is a guy in jeans and a bomber jacket. “Especially, what made you talk to me of all people?”

            “I saw you coming out of Dr. Elias’ lecture.” She nods her head to where the group of fans and the good doctor are leaving the hall to head upstairs. “Then you stood here like a lost puppy trying to decide between a crate and a park with a lot of birds.”

            “Which is which?” Barry asks. He’s trying to figure out if he’s flirting or not. He feels like he might be flirting, slightly floating as well, but he’s never been able to tell if he himself is flirting or if anyone else is flirting with him back or at all.

            “Well obviously my demo is the park.” Carol waves at the group, but only the guy in the bomber jacket waves back with a smarmy smile on his face. She rolls her eyes. “That’s my top test pilot, Hal Jordan. Ignore him, it’s what everybody does.”

            Barry laughs, there’s an obvious friendship going on there. Hal Jordan’s level of smarmy he’s seen in a whole bunch of detectives who think they’re hot-stuff, but they’re really carrying a lot of baggage around, and Carol’s whole comment? That’s definitely said in fondness.

            Damn, if only he was this good at his own relationships.

            “Come on,” Carol says, tugging on his elbow. “We’re about to start part two of the demo, you’re more than welcomed to join us.”

            “Uh, thank you?” He hurries to follow her without tripping over his feet. “I’m not sure if I’ve already asked this, but why are you doing this?”

            “Doing what?”

            “You’re asking a complete stranger, who you don’t even know—.”

            “The general description of stranger, but go on.”

            “To join observation of your demo, which is probably only accessible by invitation, corporate and military.” He waves a hand uselessly in the air. “I’ve given you no indication that I will understand anything going on in that room, nor have I given you indication that I really am just some random person and not a spy.”

            She glances at him, eyebrow raised. “Are you a spy, Mr. Allen?”

            Barry snorts. “No. But maybe that’s what I want you to think.”

            Carol laughs. “Maybe. But I have a feeling about you. I have a good gut instinct and right now mine is saying that you are a good person to be friends with.”

            “ _Friends?”_

            She ignores him in favor of drawing up to the group. “Barry Allen, I’d like you to meet Bruce Wayne of Wayne Enterprises, Ted Kord of KORD Industries, Garrison Slate of STAR Labs, and Hal Jordan, my test pilot. Mr. Wayne, Mr. Kord, Hal, this is Barry Allen.”

            Barry tries really, really, _really_ hard to keep his jaw from dropping. Especially when Bruce Wayne puts out a hand to shake. He takes it and hopes his hand isn’t as sweaty as he thinks it is.

            “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Allen,” Mr. Wayne says. “What brings you to Coast City? Are you part of another company?”

            He shakes his head almost frantically even as he shakes Ted Kord and Garrison Slate’s hands. (Hal Jordan just gives him a jaunty smile that goes with an equally jaunty salute). “I’m actually here for the continuing education. I’m a forensic analyst for the Central City Police Department.”

            Garrison Slate makes an ‘ah-ha’ noise at the back of his throat. “Same place where STAR Labs is building the particle accelerator. Tell me, what are your thoughts on it?”

            “Ah, Mr. Slate,” he says, going for chill and cool. “If I were to tell you my thoughts we’d be here all day. We’ll just go with: I think it’s one of the best things to happen to Central City, let alone the world. My favourite part is that you focused on recruiting from the surrounding areas and only brought in a few of your own people from the outside. It brought a lot of jobs the city was needing at the time.”

            Mr. Slate laughs. “Oh, I like you.” He claps Barry on the back. “Remind me to set up a dinner meeting with you. I think we’ll get along splendidly.”

            Barry gapes at him, his gaze travelling to the equally smiling Ted Kord and Bruce Wayne. Is it really that easy to get on the good side of three men who are consistently in the top ranking of the Forbes 400? He glances at Carol and she just winks at him.

            “We’ll discuss this more when the demo is over. Shall we?”

            His feet are frozen to the ground as the others head into the room, that is, until someone knocks into his shoulder. He glances over to see Hal Jordan grinning at him.

            “I bet you didn’t expect your day to end like this.” He throws an unwanted around around Barry’s shoulders, seemingly having no personal boundaries himself. Barry tries really hard not to shrug him off, he’s getting the opportunity of a lifetime here. “Or, you know, it’s not over yet. Just to let you know, Carol is off-limits.”

            Barry snorts out a laugh then immediately backtracks when Hal gives him a pretty threatening glare. “Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Hot-Shot. One, out of my league, two—.”

            “You’ve got someone else in mind,” Hal says knowingly. It’d be nice, this buddy-thing going on, if it weren’t for the smirk he has growing on his face. “Ooh, you’re in love.”

            “I don’t know you, shut up,” he grits out. If anyone else were here at this demo he’d already brush Hal off, but he doesn’t want to seem rude in front of—oh God, Robert Meersman is here too, he helped co-found STAR Labs with Garrison Slate. Now Harrison Wells just needed to show up and all the top minds of STAR Labs would be under one roof.

            Just the thought of it makes Barry want to puke. He’s not meant for these sort of high-class things. His dad is a doctor turn prisoner and his mom had been an elementary school teacher. Joe is a detective and Iris is still in school. They were middle-middle class all the way through, they didn’t have friends in high places unless you counted Captain Singh, who could barely stand Barry on good days.

            “Dude, you look like you’re going to be sick. Is this about being in love? I could give you advice on how _not_ to be in love if that will help.”

            Barry wants to say that anything Hal would teach him on that subject he would immediately throw out the window considering the looks he saw him sneaking Carol, but he can’t. He doesn’t think he can even breathe.

            “…Or not.”

            Suddenly hands have his shoulders and Hal is doing a great impression of an inquisitive owl, peering at Barry’s face with wide eyes and tilting his head to the side.

            “You’re worried about being here,” he proclaims. “Unbelievable. Dude, you’ve already charmed Garrison Slate and Bruce Wayne. You’re in the bag. Just try not to be a fangirl.”

            That startles him enough out of his freaking out to glare at him. “My name is Barry,” he says, feeling his face flush. “And I don’t fangirl.”

            “Fan boy? Nerdgasm?” He covers his face with a hand, trying to cover up the deep blush forming. “Wow, you’re really red. Like a strawberry. Oh, oh, straw- _Barry_.”

            “You know, I saw you looking at Carol,” Barry says desperately. “Are you sure your lessons on ‘not to be in love’ are going to be useful? It’s hard to teach lies.”

            Hal laughs, loudly. A couple heads turn. “Dude—.”

            “ _Barry.”_

“Strawberry.” Seriously? The guy doesn’t know when to quit. “You’ve got some family jewels. How long you here in Coastal City for?”

            “A week.”

            “This is going to be fun.”


	2. Chapter 2

Bruce Wayne is a cautious man, he has to be. Not only is he the head of Wayne Enterprises, but also he’s the dark knight of Gotham and has a seven year old, traumatized and ever questioning, boy at home. If he weren’t so vigilant it could all come crumbling down around him like a house of cards.

            So when Carol Ferris brings a complete stranger to their group and the aforementioned stranger is accepted by Slate, Kord, and Jordan with just a few good words seemingly picked at random, Bruce _has_ to do a background check. (Who is he kidding? He would’ve done a background check either way.)

            He did it to the Queens when they had their first meeting, and again when Oliver Queen came back after five years of bring dead. (The man is not as clever and subtle as he thinks he is, but give it time.)

            Looking up Barry Allen before the dinner Slate and Ferris invited them all to gives him very little to work with. The more interesting parts were his impressive track records of closed cases with the CCPD, the age at which he graduated from the Central City College of Sciences (a local school he can’t help but note), and the tragedy when he was eleven.

            Nothing criminal. He’s just an ordinary young man who happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right lost puppy look on his face that Carol couldn’t resist.

            But something still doesn’t sit right with him.

            He adjusts his tie and smiles grandly at the hostess. Her eyes are wide, star-struck, and she fumbles for a bit before she finds her words. Carol is already here, along with Jordan because she often has to drag him along or else he’d always be late or never show up at all. The trio of scientists (Kord, Slate, and Meersman) is, without a doubt, going to be late, being scattered brained and all. The only outlier is Barry Allen.

            Hal doesn’t even bother getting up from his slouched position, but Carol stands, dressed in a beautiful blue dress.

            “Bruce!” Carol shakes his hand with a big smile. “I have to thank you again for letting me invite Mr. Allen to this little shindig.”

            “I’m not the one who decided on dinner,” he says, putting a little teasing into his tone. He _likes_ Carol; she’s smart and forceful. “But it’ll be interesting to see how this all pans out. What are your plans?”

            She shrugs. “I don’t know. I just have this feeling.” She gestures toward Hal. “As we can see, my gut feeling isn’t always bad.”

            Bruce snorts and Hal makes a noise of protest at his disbelief. He sits down just as Kord shows up. Their drinks arrive when Barry Allen shows up.

            The young man looks incredibly nervous, he’s rubbing his knuckles into the palm of his other hand and his ears are tinged a deep pink that looks like the formation of a blush. His clothes are on this side of formal; they look more like they’re for work than dinner at a fancy restaurant, but Bruce can’t blame him since he probably wasn’t expecting this sort of invitation.

            “Sorry I’m late,” he says quickly, then winces. “I got lost trying to find my way here and I didn’t know there was going to be a detour.”

            “It’s not a problem,” Carol jumps in. “It’s my fault for not offering you a ride.” She waves her hand to one of the empty seats. “We’re still waiting for Robert and Gary. Sit down, order a drink. It’s all on Bruce.” She winks at Bruce as he raises an eyebrow, when did he agree to pay for the CSI?

            Barry splutters. “You don’t have to, Mr. Wayne. Thank you, but—.”

            He puts up a hand to stop him. “It’ll be my pleasure,” he assures him.

            The lights flicker and Hal glances up. “I hope a blackout doesn’t hit us while we’re here,” he comments. He wrinkles his nose. “That’ll be shit.” Carol smacks him in the arm. “ _Ow.”_ Kord laughs lowly and Hal glares at him.

Barry glances up too then around, probably noticing the lack of people in the restaurant even though it’s a Friday night and only seven o’clock. “I’d read Coast City had rolling blackouts. Has anyone figured out why yet?”

            “A splinter group of the Jokerz,” Bruce says automatically. Barry looks to him, all bright eyed and interested, and there’s a calculating look in there too. “They operate mostly in Gotham, people who are fans of the criminal Joker. They’re spreading like a disease.”

            “That vigilante, why doesn’t he take care of them?” Carol asks. The waitress sets down the appetizer and she thanks her. “Though, he probably can’t safe guard the internet. It’s probably the same reason Starling has the Vertigo problem even though the Hood—Arrow?—takes out, what’s his name, Count Vertigo. Drug trafficking doesn’t just end right then and there.”

            Barry nods. “From what I’ve read the vigilante in Gotham doesn’t usually leave Gotham. I don’t understand what causing the blackouts does for the Jokerz. Their role model obviously isn’t paying attention to them and if the public already knows who’s behind it they’re bound to be caught soon.” There’s a thoughtful furrow to his eyebrows as he thinks about it. “I’m assuming the crime rates have increased drastically? This city usually has a pretty low rate.”

            “You’re here for continuing education,” Hal points out. He slings an arm over the back of Barry’s chair and the Central City resident stiffens. “Relax a bit and let the Coast City police do their jobs.”

            Kord shoves his arm off the chair and leans against the table, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. “No, I’m interested. Bruce always fancies himself a detective and you’re a CSI. I wanna see where you go with this.” If anything, Barry’s blush grows an even deeper red.

            “Go with what?” Robert asks. He and Garrison—Gary—have finally arrived, his arm wrapped around Gray’s waist and obvious of what the real reason for their tardiness is. Barry doesn’t even flinch at the sight of them wrapped around each other like they’re one person instead of two and Bruce gives him more points for that.

            “These two are just hashing out why the Coast City chapter of the Jokerz are targeting power plants,” Carol explains. “Are they gearing up for something big?”

            Gary hums. “There’s been an increase in drug use and deaths by overdose. It’s all on the same drug. The only reason why I know about it is because the police have sent STAR some samples to figure it out.” He shakes his head, shrugging. “We got nothing, though. It’s nothing we’ve seen before. At most we could tell there’s a high dosage of epinephrine in it.”

            As much as Bruce would like to continue this talk about power outages, the Jokerz, and the drug he knows is called Velocity (it’s the main reason why he came to Gotham anyway, with Carol’s demo as a secondary reason), he steers the conversation more to STAR Labs. Carol, as smart as she is, likes to investigate things on her own and he doesn’t quite trust Barry Allen to keep talking about it.

            Strangely enough, Barry looks almost relieved with the subject change.

The blackout doesn’t hit until they’re on their way out of the restaurant hours later. A police cruiser goes screaming past, an ambulance and fire truck not too far behind. He watches it go, eyes narrowed, then turns to say goodbye to the group only to see Barry watching it go as well, eyes wide.

“It was nice meeting you, Mr. Allen,” he says, deliberately going for pulling Barry’s attention away from the chaos.

Barry startles, blinking rapidly. “Yes. Same. Thank you so much for dinner, Mr. Wayne.” He stumbles a little over his words and shakes his hand, going from squeezing too hard to too soft. After three hours of having dinner he’s still incredibly nervous, it’s almost endearing if Bruce weren’t so suspicious.

They part ways a few minutes later. Carol and Hal heading to her car. Robert and Gary walking down the street, hand in hand. Barry waits for his cab, pulling his jacket tighter around him against the slow autumn breeze. Bruce hesitates for a moment, there’s something vulnerable about Barry that reminds him of a seven-year-old boy who watched his parents fall to their deaths right in front of him.

Well, he did watch his mom get murdered and his dad sent to prison for it. It’s understandable that he and Dick would give off the same vibe.

            Bruce shoves his hands in his pockets and reluctantly turns away from him to head to his car. He’s in a sudden mood to give Alfred a call so he can talk to Dick; he’s probably awake still.

*

Time to tell the truth: continuing education isn’t the only reason why he chose Coast City. He made the change at the last minute, he was originally going up to Starling City two days from now for their C.E class, but when he heard about the blackouts and increased crime rate, he had to come. Joe hadn’t been happy about, Iris hadn’t been happy about it; Singh just rolled his eyes and told him not to make the same sudden change next time too.

            And it’s not just that. Jokerz, blackouts, crime rates, they didn’t compel him here. No, he investigates the impossible and the impossible thing here is the drug.

            It’s called Velocity and it’s killer.

            That’s both a pun and not.

            From what he can tell of cursory research is it gives the user a high like no other, everything slows down and the user speeds up. Everything’s fast, loose, and _wavy._ Of course, a lot of drugs work like this, the special part about this one is that it literally makes a person fast—super speed fast. This has his attention most definitely considering it was speed in his house when his mom was murdered.

            Barry drops his jacket on the ground, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the soaked material, and drops to the bed on his back. He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes and groans.

            He’s pretty sure he made an absolute fool out of himself at that dinner and _Carol Ferris_ is regretting inviting him in the first place. Everyone else was just polite enough not to say anything. Before he can mope about it even more his phone beeps with an incoming message.

            _Iris: Hey, you awake? Skype?_

            He heaves himself up and sets up his computer on the edge of the mattress, sitting on the floor to get a good angle. Iris’ name is lit up to show she’s online and he hesitates for only a second before clicking it to ring a call through.

            “Oh good!” Even with the bad lighting (her face is stark pale, she probably has a Word document open) and the slightly fuzzy quality, she still looks gorgeous. Her hair’s already wrapped up for bed in a deep purple and gold scarf he doesn’t remember seeing before. “You’re awake.”

            “I’m awake,” he repeats, grinning. He’s exhausted, but he’ll stay awake for her. “What’s up?”

            She launches into another rant about Joe—she is and always be angry that he didn’t let her go for the police academy and he’s torn between supporting her and supporting Joe on the subject so he usually just avoids saying anything either way. He’s not sure what brought this rant on, but he’s more than willing to listen.

            “And that’s not all,” she says. “There’s a new detective in the precinct. I haven’t met him, but dad kind of complains about him all the time. I didn’t get a name, but he’s called ‘Detective Pretty Boy.’”

            Barry snorts a laugh and covers his face. “ _What?”_ He can’t hold it in and he laughs out loud. “Since when does Joe complain about some rookie?”

            “He’s not a rookie,” she corrects. “Apparently he was a Keystone cop for three years before he got shot. After he recovered he transferred here for some reason. _He keeps count_.” Oh that would definitely annoy Joe. She shrugs. “What about you? Anything happen there? You look soaked.”

            He runs a hand through his hair, grimacing at the wet strands. Oops? “Hold on.” He gets up and grabs a towel before sitting back down. As he dries his hair he recounts his day to her, from the end of the lecture to being dragged to the demo, to being invited out, and the dinner conversation going from crime to STAR Labs. He kind of avoids mentioning any names except Carol’s and Hal’s, there’s something about Bruce Wayne that puts his teeth on edge and he’s still trying to get over the ‘oh my God’ about meeting Ted Kord and the STAR Labs founders.

            She frowns when he’s done. “While I’m glad you’re not spending all your time at lectures and in your hotel room—.” Ha! He knew it. “—I thought you promised me you weren’t going to go looking for trouble? Dad says Coast City’s in a really bad place right now and I looked it up. Crime rates have increased by fifteen percent, Bar. You already get into a enough trouble without looking for it, I just getting the feeling you’re setting yourself up.”

            “I’ll be fine,” he says. “I promise I will not deliberately go out looking for the Jokerz or anything related to Velocity.” He’d told her about the drug before he left, but her eyes widen at ‘Jokerz.’

            “ _What?_ ” Her words reach an uncomfortable pitch that only happens when she’s both worried about and angry at him. “Barry, there’s Jokerz there? They’re the number one cause of gang related activity in Gotham and third in the country. The only ones that beat them out are both gangs in Dakota City.”

            Oh crap. “Please don’t tell Joe,” he begs. “I promise I’ll stay out of it. Dr. Elias is doing another lecture on Wednesday. If you tell him he’ll demand I’ll come home and he’ll get Singh on it too and I’ll miss it.”

            She sighs. “You’re putting me in a hard place right now.”

            “I know,” he says. “But please. If you love me, you won’t tell Joe.” His heart beats wildly in his chest and if feels like it won’t be in his chest for long, especially when the silence stretches for a long time.

            Iris eyes him. “Fine. I won’t. But be careful, Barry.”

            He nods solemnly. “I promise.”

            Her gaze doesn’t leave him, like she knows instinctively that he’s kind of, sort of lying to her. He feels terrible for it, the urge to blurt out all of his plans is strong, but he holds back. She’s always believed him about the Man in Yellow and the lightning storm in his living room, but she has always disapproved his quest for the impossible. Especially after one quest earned him a broken arm and a partially burst eardrum, but that’s another story for another time.

            “Okay,” she says slowly. “I need to head to bed. I just wanted to talk.” She smiles, all teeth and squinty eyed. “Good night.”

            “Sleep tight.”

            She blows him a kiss then disconnects the call, leaving him with an empty window. He sighs and leans back on one arm, dragging the towel over his face with the other.

            Ugh.

*

            Sunday rolls around and Bruce finds himself looking for the young Barry Allen after that day’s demo. He didn’t see him yesterday, but that’s most likely because he skipped the demo to investigate the Jokerz and Velocity. The farthest he got was that the Jokerz were supplying Velocity, using their blackouts as a cover to bring more people into the fold. What they’re gearing up for, though, he has no idea, and that worries him.

            “Okay, the kid was nice and all, but do we really have to do this everyday?” he hears Hal asks.

            Bruce glances over to see Carol and Hal standing just outside the doors to the lecture hall, just like on Friday. Except this time they look expecting.

            “Hal, he’s literally only a year or two younger than you,” Carol says, she sounds frustrated. “And yes, we do have to do this every day. Barry’s nice, I like him.”

            The test pilot crosses his arms, grumbling. The jealously is practically radiating off of him. Bruce can’t help but smirk. He wanders over to them, eyebrow raised.

            “Are you waiting for Mr. Allen?”

            Carol nods. “We went out for drinks yesterday and I wanted to drag him to a movie tonight. Hal isn’t feeling very friendly at the moment.” She nudges her elbow lightly into his side. “I don’t know why, though. I thought you liked Barry?” To Bruce she says: “They both got into a heated argument about football two drinks in. I think it was love.”

            Hal groans. “Ugh, Carol. Come on.”

            She laughs. “You’re such a dude bro. No homo, right?” She leans over to whispers, “All of the homo.” She laughs even harder when Hal puts a hand to her face and pushes her away. “Come on, admit it. You like Barry. He’s a good person.”

            “Yeah, yeah,” he says grudgingly. Then he’s suddenly straightening up. “He’s cool. He really likes this one girl back home though. Once we got him drunk enough he wouldn’t stop talking about ‘Iris this’ and ‘Iris that.”

            “He’s in love,” Carol says, almost dreamily. “It’s adorable. God, I sound so old when I say it like that.”

            “Relax, Carol,” Hal says, sniggering. “You’re only a year or two older than him.” She smacks his arm. “ _Ow.”_

“Carol, Hal!” Barry’s weaving through people, his bag hiked high on his shoulder. His steps stutter a bit when he sees Bruce. “Mr. Wayne,” he says carefully, like he hadn’t been expecting to see him again.

            “Mr. Allen,” he replies with a nod. He smiles faintly at the other two. “Enjoy your movie. I need to see a man about a dog.”

            He feels three pairs of eyes on the back of his head as he heads upstairs to the lobby. It’s bright outside still, the sun just hovering barely over the horizon. It’s not really the best time to be donning on his uniform so he settles for pushing his hands in his pockets and picking up a jaunty, possibly out-of-character whistle as he walks away from the good part of the city into the bad.

            In a little less that four hours he gets _absolutely nowhere_.

            Why does this have to be so hard? He has everything but the big picture down and planned out. All he has to do is get that last bit and he can dismantle the Jokerz’s plans and take them out. He’s the Goddamn Batman, the Dark Knight of Gotham. This. Shouldn’t Be. This. Hard.

            He groans out loud. The nightlife of Coast City is loud and fun and everywhere. Even here, down in the dark places, he’s dodging young Millennials who are having the best time of their life at ten o’clock on a Sunday.

            Bruce stops by a convenience store and buys a drink, tired and annoyed that four hours (ticking away to five) got him nothing. He leans against the mouth of an alley, keeping an eye on everyone and everything as he takes small, distracted drinks of the…what did he even buy?

            “Fucking kid,” someone mutters. “Putting your nose where it doesn’t belong. You shouldn’t have come here.”

            There’s a grunt and persistent protests then a high yelp of terror and pain. Bruce whirls around, the sound coming from in the alley. His eyes widen then narrow as he stalks into the darkness, his steps light and fast. Towards the middle there’s three people standing, and another on the ground, curled into a ball.

            “What do you think you’re doing?” he growls.

            A passing light illuminates the faces of those standing, one of them as a tattoo of a cartoon joker on his face. It’s stretched an ugly. When he sees Bruce he sneers before dropping something and the three of them run away like hell is on their heels. Bruce debates going after them when low moaning catches his attention.

            Bruce rushes to the person’s side and pulls him over so he’s on his back. Another light passes by and he can’t help but gasp. Barry Allen looks up at him with half-lidded eyes, a drugged haze in them. His lips quirk up in a grin and he giggles helplessly.

            “You look like a fun house mirror,” he slurs, before his expressions scrunches in pain and he groans again, fighting to curl back on to his side. “I don’t think I’m suppose to feel like this,” he murmurs. “Somethin’s wrong.”

            He reaches down to pick up what the Jokerz has dropped, a little left over bright orange drug. Velocity.


End file.
